Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from the Book of Acts, the second chapter:
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship of the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Thus far the text.
Dear friends in Christ,
Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! Following last week’s sermon on this risen and living Jesus Christ being found in the breaking of the bread, comes this wonderful pericope from the Acts of the Apostles where we find the Church doing what the Church has always done, center itself around Word, Sacrament, and Worship. And no surprise, Jesus, just as He was in Luke 24, the risen Jesus is found in the breaking of the bread here, too.
You see, this is what the passage is all about, the breaking of the bread. This reading comes to us from Acts 2, which is Pentecost day, the day the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and gave them the ability to speak and be heard in the language of any assembled person. Then, Peter gives us a wonderful sermon about who Jesus the Christ truly is. He tells us all about how the Scriptures have prophesied to this Christ, how everything has been leading up to this one, this perfect one, this one who was both Christ and Lord, Messiah and Yahweh, God Himself. And then Peter tells those assembled, and he tells us, that despite this Jesus being the Christ and God, we killed Him.
Now, you may think that most people would be turned off by something like that. After all, we would be. We don’t want to hear that we’re wrong. We don’t want to hear that we’re sinful. We don’t want to be called on our stuff. We don’t want to hear that someone is telling us that we are breaking God’s Holy Commands. I’d guess they wouldn’t either.
But these men and women weren’t. They weren’t turned off. Instead, they were cut to the heart. The realized the depth of their sin. They realized how far they had fallen away from the God of all creation. The realized how much they had done, even personally, to collude with those who would deliver Jesus Christ over to His death at the hands of wicked men. And so, being cut to the heart, they asked the pertinent question: what then shall we do to be saved?
And this is the question that gives, literally, birth to the Church. For in the answer to this question, we have also been given new birth. Peter answers them, and for their sin of crucifying the Lord of Life and for all their sins, they are to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. And so, also have we been. Whether you were baptized as an infant or an adult, your baptism was for the forgiveness of your sins. As an adult, the Holy Spirit worked faith in you by hearing the Word of God, but then this baptism is also the Holy Spirit working faith in you by the Word of God with the water. Quite honestly, it’s the same for an infant. The Holy Spirit works faith in the infant by the very Word of God with the water.
Faith is a gift and it is this faith given to you by the Holy Spirit, not created by your own doing or your own works, it is this faith that believes in Jesus. As the Christmas song says, this gift of God we’ll cherish well that ever joy our hearts shall fill. This is what faith is, joy in the trusting in Jesus Christ who saved you from your sins and promises to you eternal life in the Resurrection from the Dead.
And so, this is what that early Church had. That early church only 50 days old and yet spanning back unto the far distant past and into eternity future. For this is the faith of Christ that has always been since Adam and Eve, the first human members of Christ’s Church, that one should know and trust in the Christ, who is the Son of God. Soon, this Son of God would come to save His people from what Adam and Eve did, but the Church has stood since the creation. This is why we pray with the angels and the archangels and all the company of heaven, for we are all, together, the Church.
And where can you find this Church? Where is it that you can hear about this faith, this Christ, this forgiveness of sins? Here, and all other places, where you hear the Apostles’ teaching, receive the fellowship of the breaking of the bread, and you have the prayers, the worship, the divine service, of the Church.
For what we have already discussed this morning, this is the teaching of the Apostles. Of course, it is only a part, but the teaching of the Apostles covers all things from the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as well as all the doctrine and explanations of Christ’s teachings that came later, like the letters of Paul, Peter, John, and James. And of course, we call these things the Scriptures. Where the Church is, the Word of God is. You cannot have the Church without it.
And now we get to the fellowship of the breaking of the bread, and this is important, for indeed in this fellowship we have all things in common with one another. This isn’t because we’re all gathered around because we like each other. We’re not in fellowship because we all agree with one another about life events or politics or what our favorite cars are (though in right doctrine we SHOULD all agree). We’re not in fellowship because we all look the same, for we don’t.
We’re in fellowship because of the breaking of the bread. We’re in fellowship because we have all eaten of Jesus’ true body and drank of Jesus’ true blood.
As one of our members here has said, we are all here, and all in the Church, related by blood, Jesus’ blood. We all have together everything in common, for we have partaken of the real presence of Jesus in this place. He has come to us bodily and physically so that we may eat Him with the bread and drink Him with the wine. Jesus has come here so that we may have Him, and have Him abundantly, for indeed He came to bring us life to the full, and in Him, and in Him only do we find life forever.
This breaking of the bread is our fellowship. It is how we are bound to one another. It is how we are bound, unionified, if you will, with Christ. It is how we are tied to the Apostles’ teaching. It is how we find life.
And ultimately, when this breaking of the bread is found, and when you have the Apostles’ teaching, you have the worship of God. You have the divine gifts of God coming to you and you have your praise, your prayers, your thanksgiving. You have the worship, the divine service. You have the Church.
You see, we find our fellowship, just as the Early Church found their fellowship, centered in the breaking of the bread, the Sacraments. This is the center of the Christian life. It is the primary thing that Christians do. We look forward to it, we love it, we long for it, we need it. We need to remember we are baptized children of God. We need to have Christ on our tongues and in our throats and bellies. We need to have Him in our ears in His Word. His praises need to be on our tongues. We need all these things, for this is what the Church needs, and we are the Church.
When we gather around these things, we gather with the whole Church, the angels, the archangels, our brothers and sisters here with us, our brothers and sisters throughout the world, and our brothers and sisters who have gone before us and are with Christ. And this all should and must have an effect on us. For when we realize that we are altogether saying the same thing, confessing the same, eating the same, drinking the same, hearing the same, when we realize that we are the Body of Christ, the Church, we, as the Early Church did, lift one another up and share with each other when one has need.
When one is hurting, we bring them to the altar and we help them bear their burdens. When one is unemployed we help them find a job. When one is struggling financially, we do what we can. This is what the Church does, not because it’s required by God’s Law to be saved, but because it’s what Christians do with their brothers and sisters. It’s what we do because we are related by blood, by the blood of Christ. It’s what we do because we have love for one another. It doesn’t matter the squabbles, it doesn’t matter the fights, it doesn’t matter the opinions, we are the Church and we have been called out of the world by the living Christ in order to receive His gifts. And we share those gifts with each other.
And why? Because Christ is found in the breaking of the bread. He is found in His Word. He is found in the worship, the prayers. He is found in all of these places for He has sent His Holy Spirit to be with us, to guide us into all truth, to help us in all action, to be with us forever. We repent, we have been baptized, we are forgiven, we hear, we eat, we drink, we worship, all because we have been given these glad and generous hearts that desire that all people throughout the world and across space and time would receive the gifts of God to their salvation, as we have received them to our salvation.
We are the Church, dear friends. We are Christ’s people. And we are gathered for this purpose, to hear the voice of our living Shepherd and receive all that He would have to give to us. Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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